In its response to the Camp David agreement on West Asia, the Saudi Arabian government has been more than fair to President Sadat. While the Saudi statement has said that the formula does not “make absolutely clear Israel’s intention to withdraw from all Arab territories it occupies, including Jerusalem,” the fact is that the “framework of peace” leaves little room for doubt that Tel Aviv intends to hold on to Jerusalem – there is no reference to it at all in the agreement – and to retain military posts in the West Bank and Gaza areas even after the five-year transitional period. Similarly, while the Saudis have said that the accord has failed to record “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to set up their own state in their own homeland and on their own soil,” the truth is that for all practical purposes the formula rules out an independent or even a semi-independent separate Palestinian state. Finally, it is beyond question that the settlement has “ignored the role of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation which the Arab summit conferences have recognised as the sole representative of the Palestinians.” Israel has had its way on all these issues and President Sadat’s protestations that no one else can secure better terms for the Palestinians, however valid in itself, cannot cover up this reality. In other words, the Saudis have been less harsh towards him than they could have been if they were not as realistic in their appreciation of the facts of power in West Asia as they are.
In effect, President Sadat has opted for a separate peace with Israel and he has every right to do so. Egypt, a nation in the truest sense of the term, unlike many other countries in Asia and Africa, has suffered enormously as a result of President Nasser’s adventurism in the name of pan-Arabism and it cannot even begin the process of economic recovery unless it is able to reduce very substantially its defence expenditure. Moreover, while it can further undermine its society, economy and polity by trying to keep the option of going to war with Israel open, it cannot possibly bridge the military gap with the latter which since 1973 has become uncomfortably wide once again. Saudi Arabia recognizes Egypt’s right to regain its lost territories through peaceful negotiations. It has entered the caveat that these efforts should not “contradict the higher Arab interests.” But that does not amount to much. In other words, Saudi Arabia will continue to back President Sadat in his bid to regain the Sinai and thereafter concentrate his and his people’s energies on the task of economic recovery. The achievement of this limited objective too, is, however, dependent on the Israeli parliament agreeing to disband Jewish settlements in the Sinai. If it does not, the whole scheme worked out at Camp David will come unstuck. President Sadat has gone as far as he possibly could in pursuit of peace for his unhappy country. If he still fails, he will be entitled to the support of all well-meaning peoples and governments. That apart, there is no room for the illusion that peace for Egypt means peace for West Asia. The region will continue to be troubled with consequences it is impossible at this stage to predict. For the general view that there can be no peace in West Asia without justice for the Palestinians – which the Israelis have no desire to concede at least in the foreseeable future – remains as valid as ever before.